From Belgium to England to Ohio, on-line
printing and labeling technologies are serving packagers in different ways.
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Ohio, U.S.A: Integrating Social Media with customized
packaging
Labeling, coding and marking systems are adapting to meet rapidly changing
trends and requirements. One of those trends is for Social Media, and another
is in personalization of packaging. A new program by Shearer’s Snacks,
Brewster, OH, combines both trends in a unique marketing program made possible
through real-time printing on the packaging line using a hybrid method that
uses several technologies in a new way.
Shearer’s Foods latest promotional effort stretches across the packager’s
branded and private label brands to offer consumers the opportunity to win
season tickets to The Ohio State University basketball games. This new program
follows on the heels of a program for OSU season football tickets that used
preprinted, scratch-off labels that were applied randomly by driver sales
personnel ahead of store delivery. This time Shearer’s selectedFASTechnology
Group’s(www.fastechgroup.com)
method, which is done on-line during packaging to solve some of the
shortcomings of the previous “prepackaged” promotion. FastTechnology’s business
model encompasses “Retail-Ready Personalized Packaging” (RRPP) systems
developed from print-on-demand processes used in the commercial printing
industry. RRPP enables the production and marketing of products customized to
store-level or to shopper-level, while eliminating the need for costly
packaging line changeovers.
For this latest iteration, potentially winning codes are printed by
FASTechonology on-demand during bagging and are embedded underneath the
real-time-printed scratch-off labels.
On-site customization at Shearer’s is possible using a custom, mobile
system
about 2 feet x 2 feet x 5 feet tall (shown) that rolls up to the
bagger. The
film web travels through the unit and exits to the infeed of the
bagger.
Onboard the FASTechnology system areVideojet Int’l (www.videojet.com)
thermal transfer printers to apply the variable promotional coding onto
the
film and Videojet labelers to apply the pressure-sensitive
labels. In Shearer’s application, the scratch-off
labels have been specifically formulated for use with bagging machines
so that
they effectively make it through the bagger without peeling.
Cognex(www.cognex.com) machine vision systems onboard confirms that the
right codes are applied properly to each bag and archived in a
database. The
winning codes are controlled by Shearer’s through online Facebook
registration.
FASTechnology president Joe Hattrup says Shearer’s OSU basketball
promotion was
planned and developed within a matter of weeks rather than the lengthy
lead-time typically required using conventional methods.
“We’ve enabled Shearer’s to manage, control
and execute their promotion to their exact specifications,” he
says.
Options include image printing and covert coding schemes by using
either
infrared or UV-visible inks for tracking purposes or serialization.
As seen in our sidebars, other examples, though more conventional,
demonstrate
the production value of modern on-packaging printing and marking
machinery.
England: Coding for ‘food
safe-tea’
Fairtrade tea manufacturer Clipper Tea in England has installed four
more
printers from coding and marking specialistLinx Printing Technologies(www.linxglobal.com),
bringing to eight the total number of Linx printers operated
by Clipper.
Clipper says it chose the Linx 7300 Continuous Ink Jet (CIJ) printers due to
their low cost, ease of use, minimized downtime and extensive features
including a USB port/backup, which enables problem-free transfer of codes and
printer settings between printers.
The Linx printers are being used to print consumer-readable “Best Before End”
dates, as well as food-safety-prompted traceability codes for internal use, onto
boxes containing Clipper’s range of Fair Trade and organic tea bags. Linx Black
fast-drying 1240 ink is used; the production line operates eight hours a day,
five days a week for 50 weeks of the year.
Steve Norris, engineering and maintenance manager for Clipper at Beaminster,
Dorset, says: “Reliability, cost and after-sales support were the biggest
factors for choosing Linx again, when we were reviewing our current printer
needs.”
Belgium: Ink-jet coder adds traceability, OEE gains
A continuous ink-jet (CIJ) printer is also proving a valuable asset for Belgian
soft drinks producer EVIDEL, delivering 100% production uptime,
maintenance-free push-button operation and increased output.
Located on the site of a natural spring near Gent in Belgium, EVIDEL Ginstbronnen
has been bottling its famous Ginstberg-branded pure mineral water and soft
drinks since 1897 using the finest flint-based crystal-clear glass to reflect
the product purity. While the product quality has remained constant over the
century, legislation surrounding the products’ bottling and identification has
changed considerably.
“Legislation demands that we now have to code and identify every bottle we
produce for future traceability,” explains Niko Claeys, assistant managing
director at EVIDEL.
To expand production to include 5-gallon polycarbonate water bottles, the
company searched for an ink jet printer to increase production output and
deliver tangible Overall Equipment Effectiveness benefits in a very
challenging, high humidity bottling environment.
“We already had a Domino A300 integrated into our glass bottling line and
coding onto the caps of our 1-Liter and 20-cL bottles, which had proved to be
extremely reliable and required little maintenance over the years,” says
Claeys. “But for this latest investment we were really looking for a technology
that would allow us greater flexibility.”
In June 2011, EVIDEL transferred the A300 to a new PC line and installed
Domino’s A320i, the very latest technology in its A-Series range of CIJ
printers, on its glass bottling line. It enabled EVIDEL to increase production
speeds.
“The A320i has really surpassed our expectations,” says Niko. “We have achieved
a 5% increase in efficiency and also benefitted from 100% uptime on our
bottling line. The A320i has provided
the ‘switch on/switch off’ solution we were looking for.”